


Spiderlings II

by Not_You



Series: Eight-Armed Hugs [13]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Animalistic, Baby Names, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Gen, Interspecies Relationship(s), Protective Clint, Size Difference, Spiders, these spiderlings are going to be the death of clint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 15:18:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4310202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the second brood exits the egg sac and names itself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spiderlings II

It's a bright, sunny morning and Natasha is putting away the remains of breakfast because it's her turn today, Clint trying to get paperwork done and keep the girls from destroying the place as they run around in one of their ten or so games of tag a day, when Rada comes running in, looking more excited than Natasha has ever seen her.

“Mama, the egg sac is open!”

Naturally, Natasha drops everything to run and witness her second brood making its way out. By the time they get there, the whole family is gathered around the egg sac, which is wriggling as the tear in one side enlarges. Marina has a little sister curled up like a small housecat in her lap already, and Clint is staring down into his own cupped palms like nothing else exists, a stunned look on his face.

“Clint?” she asks, and then blinks as a different version of the same sweet baby-smell as always comes wafting over. She kneels next to Clint, and he shows her the infintesimal boy in his hands.

“I guess I thought they were growing more in there,” he says softly, and the boy giggles, gazing up at them with (proportionately) huge blue eyes as he grips his own tiny feet, looking vastly amused.

“I know you're in there,” Anastasia is cooing, crawling forward to peek into the tear as the other girl babies crawl past her, all giggling. “There!” She sits back on her heels, the other boy in her hands. “Hi, baby,” she coos, and shuffles over to join her parents. “Look!” she holds her brother out and he clings to her thumb. “I think this one is shy.”

“Maybe a little,” Natasha says, smiling as she strokes his bright red hair with one fingertip and he hides his tiny face against Anastasia's wrist. “Hungry, baby boy?” she asks, and he whips around to look at her. She chuckles, and Oksana yelps, two of the baby girls chewing on her, the other four climbing all over their sisters. “And just when I had almost everything put away,” Natasha says, in her best imitation of a sit-com mother, and Clint chuckles, standing and following her into the kitchen, Anastasia trotting behind them.

This brood likes steak and eggs as much as the first one had, and their big sisters are delighted to help feed them. “Were we this cute?” Ariadna coos, offering the boys each a tiny scrap of meat as Alisa chops up more and Marina tickles one of her little sisters, filling the air with tiny giggles.

“Pretty much,” Clint says, beaming at them as he offers the girl on his shoulder more egg.

Despite the soccer balls having been in storage for quite some time, this batch are all called Wilson for the sake of convenience, and the baby girls are invaluable in helping to keep track of their brothers, clustering outside of hiding places too small even for them and making complaining noises. Bruce and Tony are of course fascinated with the boys, even if Tony refuses to hold them because he might drop them or lose them or something, despite all of Zhanna and Zoya's protestations that the boys are almost impossible to drop.

“Look!” Zhanna yells, attempting to drop the larger of the two, only for him to swing around her hand and run up her arm to pat her cheek.

“Kid, do uncle Tony a big favor and don't give him a heart attack,” Tony wheezes, clutching at his chest, and Zhanna and her brother just laugh.

The boys are Wilsons Seven and Eight, further distinguished as The Shy One and The Bold One. Wilsons One through Six develop much like their sisters, and everyone wears the same disposable shifts, the ones for the boys looking even more like doll clothes than usual. The boys aren't quite as fractious as their sisters, but still get into pinching and biting fights with each other, even though they skitter away with big, terrified eyes from the squabbles of their broodmates. If anything they climb even better, since they're lighter, and always find their way into the strangest places.

One morning Clint wakes Natasha up with a shout of alarm that turns into laughter by the time she reaches him. The Shy One is in the enormous water bottle Clint favors, tiny arms hooked over the neck as he stares at his insane father. Natasha chuckles, going over and offering her hand. He grabs it and lets her scoop him up.

“You shouldn't scare Daddy,” Natasha tells him, patting him dry with a paper towel.

“S'pash,” he informs her solemnly, penny-sized hands slapping an imaginary surface.

“We can make you a little pool, sweetheart. Would you like that?”

He would like that, and soon the boys are both paddling around in a little plastic tub full of lukewarm water, giggling and splashing and being generally adorable as Clint explains to Natasha how quickly human toddlers can drown and how terrified he was in the second before he realized that Wilson Eight was swimming just fine.

“Damn spiderlings are gonna be the death of me,” he says as Wilsons One and Six climb up his legs to curl up in his lap.

“Please,” Anastasia says, rolling her eyes as she cuddles Wilson Four, who seems to be the shyest of the girls and generally likes to hide in Anastasia's long hair or her strong arms, “you survived us just fine.”

“You just have no idea how young and vital I was until your mother drained the life out of me,” Clint says, grinning, and everyone laughs, Rada coming up behind him to pull the edges of his face back and up slightly.

“Is this better?” she asks, and Clint just laughs again, bringing every wrinkle back.

“No plastic surgery on your father,” Natasha says, offering the boys a bit of lunch meat when they swim to the edge of the tub. “I like him just the way he is.”

“Aw, thanks, spiderbabe,” Clint says, going for flippant and almost hitting it if she didn't know him so well. She just smiles.

By the time the second brood chooses their names, the girls are about a foot tall and the boys have reached the size their sisters were born at, and all eight of them sit in the same type of attentive circle their big sisters did. The older girls are visiting Bucky, after getting into an argument about which names suited which babies. Natasha had reminded them that they didn't have any interfering older siblings, and they had left with bad grace.

This brood takes if anything, even longer to name themselves, but at last the list emerges. Wilson One is blue-eyed blonde with an easy-going nature, who looks like Clint and like Oksana and Rada, and she chooses Susanna quickly, not seeming to care about it much. Wilson Two is a fierce redhead who otherwise looks a lot like Bucky, and after serious deliberation, chooses Tamara. Wilson Three looks a lot like Natasha save for her very dark hair, and takes the longest of anyone, temperamental and particular in a way that makes Clint think she's going to be an artist, and so it seems fitting when she settles on 'Svetlana.' Four is a pale-eyed redhead who decides on 'Ania' much more quickly, but Five drags her feet, rejecting piles of names before finally choosing 'Raisa,' while Six decides on 'Olga' almost as quickly as One.

As to the boys, The Shy One settles on 'Anatoly' after a few minutes, and The Bold One chatters for quite a while, continually weaving away from the subject before at long last deciding to call himself 'Lev.' Natasha calls Bucky to let him know that the girls can come back up now, and they come charging in seconds later, dragging Steve along behind him. He laughs as they insist that he 'commemorate the moment,' but writes each shiny new name in large, pretty cursive for for them to decorate as Bucky scoops the boys up and coos at them about how adorable they are until they insist on being set down to color with the naked leads of colored pencils, the wood lovingly chipped off by their uncle Steve so they can grip them in their tiny hands.


End file.
